Summary: (NO SPOILERS) Imagine a mission with Ben Daimio.
Pain shot through your arm as the car turned sharply, hitting another corpse.
“Damn it, Daimio, who gave you the license?!” you spat, shooting a corpse climbing over the car door. The stench of death and rotting meat made you sick.
The driving agent managed to hit every walking corpse on the road before you. The bushes were thick, and you could barely see anything coming. The road was more of an animal path. There weren’t any sensible animals around, though, unless they enjoyed the presence of raised dead.
“The same dumbass that gave you a gun,” Daimio growled, maneuvering the car in a narrow space, trying his best not to get overrun by monsters and get stuck in the bushes at the same time.
“This is bad, this is bad…”
Your ammo was running out and the horde running after you had no intentions on letting go once you have awakened it.
A blood-freezing shriek pierced through your ears as a corpse held onto the mask, even though its legs had already been run over and separated. A lipless smile spread across its skull as it climbed closer to you, not caring for the branches breaking over its back.
You reloaded calmly, not daring to look away. Two breaths later you stuffed its head with sacred silver. It finally let go, sliding under the roaring car. A bump later it was just an unpleasant memory.
“I really do hope you know where we’re going,” you leaned over Daimio, shooting another abomination climbing its way in on his side.
“Have I ever lost the track?” he sneered.
“Yeah, maybe when you led us straight into a necromancer’s orgy!”
“It was a summoning, not an orgy.”
“OH, I’m sorry, I have no idea what I was thinking. Thank you for your lovely input!”
“Don’t shout at me!”
“As long as I’m the one with a gun, I’m gonna do whatever I want!”
The window broke, sending sharp pieces of glass around as a body hit it in the back. It took you three bullets to kill it, but the damage was already done. The car wouldn’t last much longer.
Daimio saw that too. And the cliff over a river.
“That’s gonna hurt,” he warned, a second before grabbing you and jumping from the car as it rolled down the hill.
Your world shook and punched you in the face with mud, grass and a fair share of rocks. For a few moments spent upside down and rolling with all the grace of a bag of potatoes, you finally hit something rather solid and stopped.
The spinning in your head made you sick. You breathed through your nose, desperately trying to calm your stomach down.
A pat on the back brought you back to reality. “You dead?”
Daimio’s voice vibrated under your cheek.
“You soon will be,” you promised him.
You were slowly starting to feel your body again, pressed tight into Daimio’s. It looked like he tried to protect you during the fall. Your sore and achy bones didn’t realize it at first, but it was the effort that counted after all, right?
“What kind of a stupid idea was that?” you muttered into his chest, not moving. Colorful constellations were spinning before your eyes, covering the whole world. You had no idea where your gun was.
“A life-saving one. The car is currently floating in the middle of the river, and they are all after it. They didn’t see us get out, and we are far enough so that they won’t follow us by scent. I think. I’m sorry, but are you enjoying this?” hHs voice was a mixture of concern and mild astonishment, but he did nothing to push you away.
“Yeah. So much that I’ll show you my gratitude by throwing up. I feel like I’m broken in at least 7 places.”
“It wasn’t that long of a fall.”
“‘Ben Daimio - an expert on orgies and falls…’ Hellboy’s gonna love it.”
“Don’t you dare tell him. Come on, we gotta keep moving.”
He helped you up. The ground was dangerously unstable under your feet. Blood’s been running from your nose.
A distant beating of helicopter wings sounded like a blessing. Daimio contacted the team through his radio. He pulled your arm over his shoulder and dragged you through the mud.
“Come on, our Uber is waiting on that hill.”
“You sure owe them a big tip. And a pizza for me.”
“Later.”
“Once we’re back in town, the pizza’s on you. I’m not gonna wait till our next mission. I have no idea how long I’ll live if they keep assigning me to you.”
“Very funny. Crack me a few more jokes and you’ll earn some fries too.”
